Very insightful insight to the profession. I asked my mom who was a hospice nurse if it was accurate or overblown but she said it was accurate.
In short, Hospitals need to staff their units properly to reduce medical errors, burnout, and many other adverse consequences. It was interesting to read about the part where she mentioned how nursing can in some places be taught as customer service and the downsides to the business side of hospitals is that they can sometimes care more about the patient ratings rather than giving quality patient care. Sometimes what the patient wants isn’t the best thing for them and it mentioned how one hospital that had the highest ratings had high mortality rates.
The other interesting thing I read was how with DNR’s(do not resuscitate orders) sometimes it would be better instead of putting them through so many medications and treatments especially if they do require CPR their ribs are going to be broken. She mentioned how the staff would run slow codes as a loophole to show the family they tried but they would just go through the motions but walk slowly or call it sooner instead of going for longer.
When it's a journalist writing about a profession (as it is here), rather than an actual practitioner, I find that there's a tendency to focus on the most sensationalistic aspects. Not sure whether this is just modern journalistic instinct or a practicality to drive sales. Not to say that these stories are false––as your mom can vouch––but I think if you took the most "interesting" parts of any job I've had, it would sound pretty terrible too. I wouldn't say any were anything like high school though, except for entry-level office jobs. I even liked most of them!
Such accounts are still valuable, as it's not like many nurses are inclined to do something like write a book (as opposed to, say, doctors). (Speaking of which, the love-hate relationship between nurses and doctors has always been something I've found interesting about modern medicine.) Thanks for the nice review and honest impressions!